Can We Keep Him?
by But Friends Make Secrets
Summary: What happens when Sirius manages to become an Animagi before the others? Only the best prank ever! Marauders era clearly Please read! The summary doesn't do it justice!


**Ok! So in case anyone was wondering, I am still working on my other story (which if you haven't read you should)("Symptoms of Insanity")(*cough*SHAMELESS SELF-ADVERTISING*cough*) This one just came to me and I really wanted to do it. I'll be updating the other one (hopefully) soon. For now though, this is what you get. Hope you enjoy!**

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters. NO SUING!!!

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"AURG!" Remus sighed.

"Calm down James…"

"Don't you tell me to calm down! We've been trying this for WEEKS and what have we got to show for it? NOTHING!" James collapsed with a dramatic huff onto the couch sitting in the corner.

The four Marauders were currently sitting in one of the large secret caverns they had discovered beneath the castle of Hogwarts. They were here for one reason and one reason only: To finally become animagi. This was the only way they could think of to help their best mate, Remus Lupin, during his terrible werewolf transformations every month. The second semester of their third year had just started and after almost two and a half years of hard work, they were ridiculously close to their goal.

"This is taking too long! We should have gotten it by now."

"James, this is a very advanced spell. Most people wait till they're out of school to even consider becoming animagi!"

"I just don't want to miss another full moon." It was true, another full moon had just passed, leaving Remus alone for another transformation. James sighed.

"Whatever. I'm going to bed…" He headed for the exit leading back to the dorms. Remus nodded.

"That's probably a good idea." Peter also nodded and started walking with them. However, the fourth Marauder, one Sirius Black, stayed behind.

"You guys go ahead, I'm gonna stay just a little longer." The others exchanged glances.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'll be up in a bit." James shrugged.

"If you say so." And with that, the three friends left, leaving Sirius alone in the room.

Sirius frowned. He was so close, he knew he was! He paced a bit. After a few minutes, he finally stopped and took a deep breath. The books all said it helped to be relaxed. Alright. Relaxed... Relaxed…

Stressed Stressed Frustrated Stressed

Gah! Sirius growled a little. Clearly, this wasn't working. After a little more paced and cracking his knuckles, neck, back, and any other bones he could think of, he stood still again, taking deep breaths.

Calm…Calm… Ok, now he was suppose to imagine the power/magic/ whatever flowing through his body, transforming him into… something. _You know, it would really help if I actually knew what animal I was trying to become!_ He though, frustrated again.

He hated that this was taking so long, he just didn't complain as much out loud like James. He really wanted to be there for Remus during those painful nights. He hated seeing his friends come back from the hospital wing with bandages and bruises covering his body. If they could just go with him…

He wondered what it would be like, spending a night every month with a werewolf. He closed his eyes. He imagined running through the forest, faster than any human could every hope, side by side with a creature they were taught to fear. To hate. But he could never do that. He imagined seeing the werewolf howl and gazing at it in the light of the full moon. The thought of how James and Peter would be there too, in their own forms, the four friends all there to protect one another.

Suddenly, Sirius felt a pain in his body. It wasn't horrible, more like a dull ache that spread through his spine to the rest of his body, bringing him to his knees. But just as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. He found himself panting, though he wasn't sure why, and on all fours on the ground, which he also didn't know why. Until he actually looked down at himself.

He yelped in surprise (literally) when he saw in place of his hands, two large, black furred paws. He quickly turned around to the mirror that had been brought to this room for precisely this purpose. There, staring back at him, was a big, shaggy, black dog.

He blinked a few times. A dog. Sirius **Black**, named after the **dog** star, turned into a **black dog**. Was this some kind of cosmic joke?! _As if having the name 'Sirius' didn't get me enough puns…_ Pushing past the irony, he was finally able to fully take in this situation. _I did it… I FINALLY DID IT!_ Sirius barked in happiness and ran around the room, trying out his new body. After a while though, the happiness faded just a little as he found himself with a new dilemma.

_How do I change back?_

He thought for a moment. The books all said the process of going from animagi to human was very similar to human to animagi. In fact, it was suppose to be even easier because you actually knew exactly what to change into. Sirius sat down and closed his eyes again. This time, he focused on his human body. His long limbs, his thin frame that always had people telling him to eat more, his hair as black as his name that he had grown out in rebellion, his stormy grey eyes…

Soon enough, he once again felt the dull ache through his body. Once it had passed, he opened his eyes and looked at his hands and feet, human once more. He then checked everything over in the mirror to make sure he hadn't messed up and given himself a tail or anything. After making sure everything was in order, he grinned widely. He did it! All that time and work had finally paid off! He had to tell the others!

He was halfway down the tunnel when he stopped, the wheels in his head turning, the prankster within him plotting. He was a dog. A perfectly normal, nothing special dog. The idea began forming itself in his mind. With each passing moment his grin got wider and wider (and more evil looking, but we'll let that slide).

_Oh, this would be **good**...

* * *

_

The next day:

"Why is herbology so hard!"

"Don't worry Peter, you'll get it!"

"Personally, I don't find it hard so much as, boring."

"You would Sirius."

"What! It's plants. Even magical plants can only get so interesting."

"Yeah, yeah…" James looked over to see Peter rummaging through his bag.

"What's up Peter?"

"Uh, I think I left my notebook back at class." Had anyone cared to look, they would have noticed a mischievous glint in Sirius' eyes. However, no one did care to look, so it passed unnoticed. Peter sighed.

"I better go back to get it."

"Ok, we'll meet you back in our room."

"Alright, I'll be there in a second." Peter waved to the others before running back towards the classroom. After walking for a minute, Sirius turned to the others.

"Hey, I forgot I need to, uh, run and see Professor McGonagall about, ah, a missed assignment." James and Remus exchanged a quick glance before shrugging.

"Whatever, we'll be in the dorm when you're done."

"It might take awhile. I'll just meet you guys at dinner." They simply shrugged again.

"Ok. See ya." Sirius nodded and ran around the corner of the building. Once he saw the others were gone he quickly ran back towards the herbology building.

He double checked his surrounding to make sure their was no one around. The one down side to this prank was that he had to be especially careful not to be caught or there would be more than a detention to pay. After seeing the coast was clear, he quickly focused and turned into the large black dog that was his animagi form. After spending a little more time practicing, he found it was much easier and faster to change between the two forms at will.

After a moment, he noticed Peter coming back, stuffing his notebook in his bag. Giving a doggy grin, he quickly bounded over to his friend. Meanwhile, Peter was walking quickly to catch up with the other Marauders when he suddenly found himself being tackled to the ground.

"Ah!" He yelled as he fell to the ground, his bag falling beside him.

"What the…" He looked up and blinked a few times as he found himself face to face with a large black dog. He quickly pushed himself off the ground and looked down at the dog. It looked like it was grinning and was wagging its tail happily.

"Hi there. Where'd you come from?" He reached down and scratched the dog between its ears. He smiled.

"I bet you'd like my friends. But I don't think pets are allowed…" He trailed off. He had always wanted a dog. He loved his owl and all, but dogs were different. He was pretty sure dogs weren't allowed at school, but the Marauders broke rules all the time anyway. So…

"You know what, why don't you come with me and meet them?" The dog gave a happy bark and wags its tail faster. If Peter didn't know any better, he'd have thought he was agreeing.

Secretly, Peter was leading Sirius back to the castle, his doggy grin taking on a more devious look. _Phase one: complete._

* * *

One little snag in his plan: Peter was not very inept at hiding things, let alone large animals. And it was the middle of the day, so there were many students walking the halls. Peter glanced around. He knew of a secret passage that led up to the Gryffindor common room. If he could get there, it shouldn't be hard to get to the dorm room. He turned to the dog. On the one hand, he felt kind of stupid talking to this dog as if it understood him, but one the other hand… ok there was no other hand. He just liked talking to it.

"Alright, now you have to be really quiet, ok?" Sirius almost nodded, but caught himself in time to just give a small woof. Peter smiled and pet his head one more time before turning to enter the castle.

He opened the door slowly and, after making sure no one was around, quickly slipped in. He kept close to the wall, always looking in every direction. He was getting close to the passage he was looking for when he heard footsteps coming his direction. Panicking, he glanced around when he noticed the entrance to a different tunnel. He didn't have the Marauders Map with him, and he couldn't remember where this one went, but as he heard the footsteps get closer he decided he'd have to chance it. He quickly grabbed the dog and pulled him into the passage. While Sirius wasn't exactly happy to be pulled around like a -well, like a dog- there wasn't much he could do, so he remained silent.

After wandering down the passage, Sirius knew they were lost. Unfortunately, he was unable to make fun of and/or yell at Peter. Finally, they reached the end of the tunnel.

"Uh, we're here?" He smiled sheepishly at the dog, almost hoping to fool him into thinking he knew where he was. Sirius knew better.

Peter eased the door open, glancing around. At first, he didn't recognize where they were. After a moment though, he had the unfortunate horror of figuring it out. They were in the Slytherin dungeons. He had been here enough to pull pranks, but that had always been with the James, Sirius, and Remus to back him up. Admittedly, Sirius was with him now, but he was unaware of that and if caught Sirius would be unable to change back without serious repercussions, so for all intensive purposes, Peter was on his own.

Peter gulped. He turned to look at the dog and he could have sworn it had a concerned look on its face. He gave a small smile.

"Don't worry. I-I know what I'm doing." Sirius resisted the urge to roll his eyes and instead followed Peter out into the hall. They crept down the corridor as quickly as they could without drawing attention to themselves. Peter was getting closer to a different secret passage that would take them to the Great Hall. He figured any where was better than here. However, he hoped too soon as he once again heard footsteps coming towards him. He looked around. He noticed a tapestry that hung down to the floor and immediately pushed Sirius behind it.

"Stay here!" Sirius did as he was told while Peter looked to see who was coming. He groaned when, of all people, Snape rounded the corner. He froze when he noticed the Marauder standing in the middle of the hallway.

"Pettigrew! What are _you_ doing here?!" Snape narrowed his eyes, immediately suspicious. The Marauders were always causing him trouble, and he found it especially suspicious that the weakest of the group in his eyes was alone. And here of all places!

"Um, well, I, uh…" Peter, not knowing what else to do in a situation like this and already in a panicked state, pulled out his wand.

"STUPEFY!" Snape, not expecting Peter to attack him on his own, was immediately hit by the spell and fell to the ground. The only problem was, now Peter was panicking even more.

"Oh gosh, oh gosh, oh gosh! I'm gonna be in sooooo much trouble! I gotta do something. Think Peter, think! What would James or Sirius do?" Sirius rolled his eyes at this, finding the statement ironic, and walked out from behind the tapestry.

Surprisingly enough, Peter had a stroke of genius. He walked over to were Snape was lying and… hit him on the head. Hard. He then looked up at the ceiling till he found a brick that he felt could be safely removed without bringing the entire castle down. He pointed his wand and the stone floated down and landed next to Snape's head. Peter bent down and was satisfied with the large bump forming on his head. He then stepped back and admired his work. To a passerby, it simply looked like Snape had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and was a victim of a rotting ceiling.

Sirius had to admit, he was impressed. When he wanted to, Peter could really think on his feet. Peter then lead Sirius to the tunnel and after they had both entered, pointed his wand out and reversed the Stupefy spell, though Snape remained unconscious due to the bump on his head. He would be found later by a group of Slytherins and would be convinced he had dreamed Peter's presence in the dungeons.

After much running around under the castle, Peter and Sirius finally managed to make it back up to the Gryffindor common room. Peter looked in and saw that no one else was there and slipped in. He hopped up the stair to their dorm and opened the door a crack.

"Peter! It's about time you got here. Where've you been?" James sat up on his bed while Remus looked up from his book. Peter took another glance around, making sure they didn't have any visitors or anything.

"Well, I-" But before he could finish his thought, Sirius ran past him. He immediately jumped up on James' bed and sat on top of him, licking his face happily.

"AHHH!!! Peter, what the heck!?!!" James practically screamed as he tried to push Sirius off him. He and Remus stared, waiting for an explanation. Peter just smiled sheepishly.

"Uh, Can we keep him?"

* * *

After telling the others about his adventure with finding the dog and trying to bring it back to the room, they all sat around the dog, petting him.

"What should we call him?" James broke the silence. Remus thought.

"Well, what stands out about him?"

"He's huge, for one."

"Yeah, but what kind of names can you come up with with that?"

"Giganto?" Sirius growled causing James to jump and Remus to chuckle.

"I think that's a no." Peter spoke up next.

"His paws are _really_ big though. They're almost bigger than my hand!" Peter demonstrated by putting his hand over his paws.

"That's true." Remus thought for a moment while Peter continued.

"That's probably one of the reasons I didn't get caught. He didn't make a lot of noise with those big padded feet." James perked up.

"Hey! Maybe that's what we could call him!"

"What?"

"Padfoot!" The others thought about it.

"Padfoot… yeah, it suites him!" They all agreed. Suddenly, James noticed the time.

"Hey! It's almost time for dinner! We gotta go tell Sirius about this!" The others nodded in agreement. After giving the dog a final pat, they all got up and walk out.

"We'll be back soon Padfoot!" And with that, they were gone.

Sirius grinned as he changed back into a human. He stretched out, cracking a few bones at the same time. This would be beautiful….

* * *

Sirius met up with the others right as they entered the Great hall.

"Hey guys! You miss me?" James just rolled his eyes.

"Yes, Sirius. We've been pining your absence all afternoon." Sirius grinned. As they sat down, Remus took up the conversation.

"Actually, quite a bit has happened while you were gone." Sirius gave them his best innocent and confused face.

"Oh really now? Do tell!" The others immediately launched into the great story, Peter starting with finding a great black dog and braving the Slytherin dungeons, and moving to James being attacked by the creature and thinking he was going to die by the jaws of the wild animal, with Remus adding comments here and there.

"Wow. You guys really did have an adventure." He smiled widely. "I can't wait to meet this… Padfoot." The others nodded and started talking excitedly about how much fun it would be to have a dog with them at school.

After dinner was over, the four boys ran back up to their dorm. As soon as they entered though, they were met with a surprising sight. Nothing.

The room was just as they had left it minus one black dog. Sirius gave a sarcastic laugh.

"Ha ha, you guys almost got me. A wild dog running around Hogwarts. Very funny. How'd you come up with that?"

"No no! It's not a prank! He really was here!" James shouted. Remus, being the logical one of the group, pointed out the obvious.

"Guys, if he's not here, that means he must be somewhere else in the castle!"

"Well, he couldn't have gotten that far…"

"James it's a DOG, not a TURTLE. He could be ANYWHERE!"

"Alright, alright! Just let me think…"

"Can't you think any faster?"

"Shut up Sirius!"

"Look, why don't we all just split up and look for him? There's not many places he could be where someone else wouldn't have already found him."

"Good point. Let's go!" And with that, the four ran out to find their lost pet, not even noticing Sirius lagging a little behind, a wide smile gracing his features…

* * *

They looked everywhere they could think of. Remus checked outside to see if Padfoot had somehow gotten out. Peter checked all the abandoned classrooms to see if he had gotten stuck or was placed there by other students. James checked all the places in between, hallways and stairwells, and he actually was the one who ended up finding him. Or more, Sirius found him.

"There you are!" James exclaimed as the dog jumped up to lick his face again. "We've been looking everywhere! Come on, we got to go find the others." After a few minutes, they managed to find Remus and Peter.

"You found him!"

"Yeah, he was just wandering the halls."

"It's a wonder no one else found him."

"Lucky is more like it."

"Anyway, anyone seen Sirius?" They shook there heads.

"Well we better get back-" James had put his hand down to pet Padfoot, but his hand had found only air. He looked down. Sometime during their conversation, he had vanished! The other two also looked down in astonishment. At that moment, Sirius walked in from behind the corner.

"Well, he's not on the roof… Uh, what's wrong with you guys?" The others were still staring at the empty spot where the dog had been mere moments before. "Uh, guys?" Suddenly, James let out a curse.

"We lost him AGAIN!" Sirius raised an eyebrow, the picture of ignorance.

"Say what now?"

"I found him and he was _right there!_ And now he's gone!" Sirius nodded.

"Uh huuuhhhh…. So you're sure this dog exists?"

"Sirius!"

"Alright, alright. Well, he's got to be around here somewhere, right? So lets start looking again before he gets too far" The others nodded their agreement before bolting off in different directions.

The next two hours were madness (at least, for three out of four of the Marauders. Sirius was having a grand ol' time). The three boys were running down hallways, throwing open classrooms doors (much to many teachers' dismay) trying to call for the dog without bringing attention to themselves. Every few minutes, on of them would catch a glimpse of him. James saw him run behind a corner, but he was gone when he got there. Peter saw the tip of his tail disappear down the stairs, but couldn't find him again. Remus saw a flash of black behind one of the classrooms, but found nothing. It went on like this, black blurs almost constantly in their vision, sending them running in circles around the school, but never being able to actually find the massive dog.

Finally, they gave up. It had long since become dark outside and the four boys returned to their room with no Padfoot. Sirius, sensing his time was almost up decided to go for one more kick…

"Come on you guys, cheer up! I'm sure you'll find him tomorrow."

"But what if someone else find him? Like a teacher! We'll never get him back…"

"And we couldn't even manage to find him today, what'll make tomorrow easier?"

"Alright, alright. Describe him for me one more time." James sighed and held out his hand.

"About yea high, shaggy black fur, floppy ears…" Sirius nodded and put his hand on his chin like he was thinking hard.

"Sorta like… this?" And in a flash, Sirius transformed and suddenly Padfoot stood before them.

James screamed like a little girl and jumped into Remus' arms. Peter also screamed (though surprisingly not as girly as James) and jumped up on his bed, clutching the bedpost for dear life. Remus let out a loud yelp, partly from Sirius and partly from suddenly finding himself holding James (who had to be at least 20 pounds heavier than him) bridal style in his arms.

While they were trying to recover, Sirius changed back and was on the ground, crying and clutching his ribs he was laughing so hard. The others simply blinked at him until Remus spoke up.

"You… you did it!" Sirius nodded, still laughing though not quite as hard. Remus dropped his arms, sending James plummeting into the ground.

"You actually did it!" Sirius had finally managed to stop laughing and merely grinned at them. That is, until Remus picked up his pillow and started wacking him with it.

"You jerk! We spent two hours looking for… for… YOU!" While he tried to sound angry, Remus couldn't stop himself from laughing with Sirius.

"Ow! You know I couldn't- Ow! Pass up an- Ow! Opportunity like this!" Sirius cried out between thwacks from the pillow. Soon, the other two joined in and once Sirius got a hold of his own pillow, it was an all out war, the four friends laughing and beating each other with all their might.

When it was all over, they lay on the floor, covered in feathers, all smiling and still chuckling occasionally. James looked over at Sirius.

"I gotta say mate, that was bloody brilliant!" The other two nodded in agreement.

"Well, now the truth is out so you can help us finish too." Sirius grinned.

"Of course! But now if I find any strange animals around, I'll be highly suspicious." They all laughed. James reached over and scratched Sirius behind his ear while grinning at Peter.

"Well, Peter I _guess_ we can keep him." He said with a dramatic sigh. Sirius hit him with a pillow, but Remus stood up before they could start another war.

"Alright, I'm done for today. Time for bed!" Soon they were all in bed with the lights off. James grinned in the dark.

"But no more strays Peter!" Remus chuckled.

"Yeah one is enough." Sirius laughed with them.

"Oh you know you love me!"

"Of course we do." Peter said sarcastically. Remus rolled his eyes.

"Whatever, goodnight!" Sirius rolled over and grinned, thinking about all the times, this time included, spent with his friends.

"Thanks for keeping me."

"Anytime, Padfoot. Anytime."

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**THE END**

**While I hope you enjoyed it, if you didn't I also want to know (just try to be at least semi-nice) Thanks for reading! *MWAH!*  
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